I hope you enjoy this collection of great quotes as much as I have; they have comforted and strengthened me as I rebuild my life and business. I would encourage you to begin your very own great quotes library. May you find yourself in hours of deep thought. -- Curtis Staggs, owner StartaRealBusiness.com

P.S. they're in no particular order of importance

"Do the thing and YOU will have the Power." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Our power is in our ability to decide." -- Buckminster Fuller

"To be thrown upon one's own resources, is to be cast into the very lap of fortune; for our faculties then undergo a development and display an energy of which they were previously unsusceptible. " ~Benjamin Franklin

"If you do not feel yourself growing in your work and your life broadening and deepening, if your task is not a perpetual tonic to you, you have not found your place."

~ Orison Swett Marden

"Do not wait; the time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along."~ Napoleon Hill

"No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he only had good intentions.

He had money as well." -- Margaret Thatcher

"Without AMBITION one starts nothing. Without WORK one finishes nothing. The prize will NOT be sent to you. You have to WIN it. The man who knows HOW will always have a job. The man who also knows WHY will always be his boss. As to methods there may be a million and then some, but PRINCIPLES are few. The man who grasps PRINCIPLES can successfully select his own METHODS. The man who tries METHODS, ignoring PRINCIPLES, is sure to have trouble." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Let us work as if success depended upon ourselves alone, but with heartfelt conviction that we are doing nothing, and God everything."~ St. Ignatius Loyola

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."~ Albert Schweitzer

"People think that at the top there isn't much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top."

~ Margaret Thatcher

"There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self."~ Aldous Huxley

"A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love." ~ St. Basil

"The world is full of abundance and opportunity, but far too many people come to the fountain of life with a sieve instead of a tank car... a teaspoon instead of a steam shovel. They expect little and as a result they get little." ~ Ben Sweetland

"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."~ John Lennon

"Leaders aren't born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that's the price we'll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal." ~ Vince Lombardi

"Skill in the art of communication is crucial to a leader's success. He can accomplish nothing unless he can communicate effectively." ~ Norman Allen

Leadership 101: To be an inspirational leader, you must first be inspired by and absolutely committed to an ideal vision. Whatever the cause, you'll never attract anyone else's interest if it doesn't inspire you first.

"The first task of a leader is to keep hope alive." ~ Joe Batten

"You will never FIND time for anything. If you want time, you must MAKE it."~ Charles Bixton

"My greatest point is my persistence. I never give up in a match. However down I am, I fight until the last ball. My list of matches shows that I have turned a great many so-called irretrievable defeats into victories." ~ Bjorn Borg

"It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn't a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is a sin." ~ Benjamin E. Mayes

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

~ Thomas A. Edison

"To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect."--Joan Didion

"Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can."~ Willis Whitney

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." ~ Calvin Coolidge, 30th President

"Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right!" ~ Henry Ford

"It's simply a matter of doing what you do best and not worrying about what the other fellow is going to do."~ John R. Amos

"You will be as much value to others as you have been to yourself."

~ Marcus T. Cicero

"It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are."

~ Roy Disney

"The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine."~ Mike Murdock

"Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak." ~ Thomas Carlyle

“The path to success is to take massive,determined action”Tony Robbins

"People see the world not as it is, but as they are."~ Al Lee

"We need to give ourselves permission to act out our dreams and visions, not look for more sensations, more phenomena, but live our strongest dreams -- even if it takes a lifetime." ~ Vijali Hamilton

"Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity." – Henry Van Dyke

"Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly."

"There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other."~ Douglas Everett

"You don't have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things -- to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals." ~ Sir Edmund HillaryFirst to climb Mt.Everest

"Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination."

~ Fitzhugh Dodson

"Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves -- to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterday by our today."~ Stewart B. Johnson

"It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn't a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is a sin."~ Benjamin E. Mayes

"Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows."~ Michael Landon

"Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em." -- William Shakespeare

"Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force."~ Tom Blandi

"Every successful man I have heard of has done the best he could with conditions as he found them..."

~ Edgar Watson Howe

"If you want to make good use of your time, you've got to know what's most important and then give it all you've got."~ Lee Iacocca

"Deep within man dwell those slumbering powers; powers that would astonish him, that he never dreamed of possessing; forces that would revolutionize his life if aroused and put into action." ~ Orison Swett Marden

"The elevator to success is out of order. You'll have to use the stairs... one step at a time."~ Joe Girard

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!" ~ Soren Kierkegaard

"If you view all the things that happen to you, both good and bad, as opportunities, then you operate out of a higher level of consciousness." ~ Les Brown

"A man cannot leave a better legacy to the world than a well-educated family."

nThomas Scott

"Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect."

nLeonardo da Vinci, Artist

"As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do."

nAndrew Carnegie, Industrialist

"In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while thelearned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a worldthat no longer exists." -- Eric Hoffer"Do not value money for any more nor any less than its worth; itis a good servant but a bad master."-- Alexandre Dumas"If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion."-- George Bernard Shaw

“Every year I work until I earn a billion dollars.It takes 15 days and I’m done for the year.”--Ted Turner, cable mogul

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. by Marianne Williamson

'I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit.'

Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'

-Muhammad Ali

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.Henry David Thoreau

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." – Thoreau

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."- Thoreau

'The path to success is to take massive, determined action'-Anthony Robbins

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.-- Mark Twain

Theodore Roosevelt, America’s 26th President:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who pointsout how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deedscould have done better. The credit belongs to the man whois actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust andsweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comesup short again and again, because there is no effortwithout error or shortcoming, but who knows the greatenthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for aworthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, thetriumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if hefails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that hisplace shall never be with those cold and timid souls whoknew neither victory nor defeat.”

"Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." – Willaim Shakespeare

"Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss. As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble."~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that." ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Curtis is a seasoned business veteran of 20+ years with his roots in small traditional business. He has owned and operated four brick and mortar businesses; he has also been involved in countless home based endeavors too numerous to mention and actively introduces and teaches others about the free enterprise system. As a stroke survivor, Curtis believes financial freedom is not an option but rather a necessity to truly enjoy life. He resides with his wife and five children in the rolling hills of western KY.

If you're looking to "change your stars" financially, you can reach Curtis at dig4diamonds@hotmail.com or by phone at 270-339-3672